Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center performed the most extensive full face transplant to date, replacing everything from the hairline to the collar bone of a 37-year-old man, including the upper and lower jaw bones, teeth, and a portion of the tongue. The operation took place over 36 hours on March 19 and 20 and involved more than 200 medical professionals.

The face transplant was part of a 72-hour marathon of organ donation at the center, in which five patients received organs from one anonymous donor.

The effort is being hailed as remarkable for the generosity of the donor and the scope of the operation, as well as scientific advancements that enabled the transplant.

A week after the surgery, the recipient of the face, Richard Norris, of Hillsville, Virginia, is moving his jaws, opening and closing his eyes, brushing his teeth and shaving, doctors said in a press conference Tuesday.

Norris suffered a gun accident in 1997 that left him with just a skull, eyes and part of his jaw. Doctors said he has been living in near seclusion since the accident, wearing a mask when he went out in public. Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, the surgeon leading the operation, said he had performed 12 different surgeries on Norris since 2005, but was never able to restore his face.

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Pictures and video are also at the link. I believe to donate the face of a loved one would be a huge gift, especially for the person receiving the transplant. I hope his recover goes well.

Wiens suffered life-threatening burns to his head when the boom lift he was operating drifted into a nearby power line in 2008. The horrific accident and 22 surgeries that followed left Wiens with a face void of features short of a lipless mouth and a small goatee.

But in March, a team of more than 30 doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists at Brigham and Woman's Hospital in Boston worked for more than 17 hours to give him a new face, complete with skin and the muscles and nerves needed to animate it.

"The ability to smile and to show emotion on my face, even unintentionally, is such a natural thing," Wiens told the Dallas Morning News. "Having a new face has changed me dramatically."

This goes to show there are some good people in the world and sometimes good news. Videos and more at the link.

This is great news, and it's another step in the extraordinary advances of medicine these days.

We wish this man, and the other people who have had face transplants, all the best.

Face transplants have been happening all over the world since doctors began doing the procedure seven years ago. But this one, the 23rd since they began, was the most extensive.

The first U.S. face transplant was performed in 2008 on a woman, Connie Culp, whose face had been terribly injured when her abusive husband shot her in the face. The photos in the link give you a picture of how she looked before and after her injuries.

A good and incredible news. It’s a big step of medical treatment that definitely would do more good for those in need without any doubt. I highly appreciate the anonymous donor. What he or she did would change the patient whole life, and it’s really a kind of goodness. Hope his recovery goes well.